Russo-American Relations

Dov Zakheim: I believe basically the Russians are pursuing the Czarist foreign policy. And the United States was able to get along with the Czars. I mean we had our differences. But, you know, Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize negotiating the Czars and the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War. Part of what Russia wants is, you know, sort of they feel a little like Rodney Dangerfield. They need a little more respect. You know, they’ve gone from being a super power to being Rodney Dangerfield, and they don’t like it. Rodney Dangerfield didn’t like it either. They want more respect. They want to be a player. They’re feeling their oats economically, and their frustrated. They’re frustrated with us because we . . . If we can ignore them, we do ignore them. So therefore they’re doing the kinds of things to make sure that we don’t ignore them. And those kinds of things are not good. They could be a tremendous problem for us if we let them. And I worry that we might let them. And you know, being excessively hostile is just as bad as being phony. I mean it just doesn’t work. We have to treat them in a business-like way. I think that’s a major issue for us.

Even the optimists among us would have to admit 2018 was a challenging year. The fractured world that became the focus of our 2018 Annual Meeting a year ago came under further pressure from populist rhetoric and rising nationalist agendas. At the same time, the urgent need for coordinated global action in areas such as climate change, inequality and the impact of automation on jobs became more intense.